The Unholy Trinity of Twitter Sins

Ahh, Twitter. The wonderful place digital marketers frequent to avoid the inappropriate oversharing of Facebook and the dry professionalism of LinkedIn. It’s a social media haven, right?

Well, almost. You’d think it’d be difficult to annoy people with only 140 characters, but somehow, some Twitter users still manage it.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the top three Twitter sins: the unholy trinity of irritants that make Twitter feeds less of a haven and slightly more hellish.

So, who’s guilty?

1.#FF

If you participate in Follow Friday, please stop. Seriously.

It all used to be so different for #FollowFriday. Originally, it was a helpful trend, with #ff tweets brimming with personalised recommendations as to why we should follow each suggested account. It was thoughtful, useful, and it connected like-minded people with one another.

Then it descended into spam. Nowadays, we’re bombarded with #ff tweets listing an endless string of Twitter handles that nobody is going to take the time to read, let alone click. And nobody’s got time for that.

We can happily report that Follow Friday is dying out. But if you’re one those few Twitter users still clinging on to this bothersome hashtag, just know that if you just #ff your pals each week, your followers aren’t gaining anything from it.

Takeaway tip: If you do want to participate in #ff, just choose one account to suggest to your followers and support it with a little context. That way, you’re sharing something with meaning, and the account is more likely to actually gain follows.

2.“HELLO EVERYONE, HAVE A GREAT MONDAY! LOOKING FORWARD TO READING YOUR TWEETS (INSIGHT BY /COMMUN.IT )”

Oh, the humanity. How many times have you happily started to scroll through a Twitter feed, only to see dozens of automated tweets spewing out the exact same word vomit?

Now, there’s nothing wrong with social media automation. And there’s nothing wrong with wishing your followers a pleasant day. But by merging the two together day in, day out, you’re hindering rather than helping your efforts to engage.

We get it, automated tweets save you time. Used sparingly and smartly, they can be quite the godsend. It’s when you use bland stock phrasing like the example listed above – words that everybody else in the Twittersphere has already used to death – that you come across as insincere. (And hella annoying, too.)

Takeaway tip: Be careful not to let your Twitter account slip into autopilot. The odd automated tweet is perfectly fine, but never allow your profile to become a robotic read powered by third party insight providers.

Ouch, even typing that hurt. Aside from the fact that reading tweets like this is enough to make anyone’s eyes bleed, it’s also entirely counter-productive to get heavy handed with the hashtags.

Any more than three and you’re making your tweet look cluttered and spammy. Also, you have to be realistic about the types of hashtags people are searching for… just which audience is looking for #great, precisely?

Takeaway tip: Only use hashtags for relevant terms and trends, and even then, only use an absolute maximum of three per tweet. After all, you want to enrich the user’s experience, not overwhelm them with clickable content overload.

Well, that’s it. It’s officially confession time… are you a Twitter sinner? If so, repent today and all will be forgiven.